


Day on the horizon

by Eloarei



Series: Day on the Horizon [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Ambiguous Relationship, Canon-typical wandering, F/M, Gen, Human/Monster Romance, I hate to call Fawkes a monster but that's the tag, I ship it but they're still just figuring life out, One Shot, Other, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25249828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: On a routine scavenging run, a quick stop at a playground. The wanderer has a small (and ultimately unimportant) revelation about her mutant friend.
Relationships: Fawkes & Lone Wanderer, Fawkes/Female Lone Wanderer, Fawkes/Lone Wanderer
Series: Day on the Horizon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882009
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Day on the horizon

**Author's Note:**

> I drew [this little picture](https://eloarei.tumblr.com/post/139041033972) ages ago but my husband still really likes it. When I asked for a prompt to get me out of writer's block he suggested something along these lines, and I thought, "Yeah! I've always meant to write about them!" Is it what he intended? Maybe not. Does it make sense? I dunno. But it was great for dealing with writer's block, at least for a day.

At the moment, there was nothing especially plaguing Addisson. There were no big wars to be fought, no conspiracies to uncover, no settlements to save, and nobody that she was aware of who needed rescuing. Undoubtedly there was _someone_ out there who needed something, but she wasn’t some omnipotent savior and this was something she had come to terms with. Unless she stumbled upon them, all those needy people out there were just going to have to save themselves for a little while.   
  
Today she was going scavenging. Supplies were getting a little bit low, and since nothing was on fire right this second she decided it was a good time to be proactive about procurement, instead of waiting until things were desperate to decide there wasn’t enough RadAway or .308 ammo.   
  
Fawkes and Dogmeat were in tow, as usual. They’d been in tow pretty much since she’d first laid eyes on them, in a nasty vault and a nasty junkyard respectively. Dogmeat dashed forward to play vanguard for a few minutes as they climbed over the dry, rocky hills of the Capital Wasteland. Then he fell back and trotted at her side for a while, before following along in her distant periphery, always looking for something useful. Fawkes stayed a few steps behind her shoulder, content to let her take the lead but still more than able to keep a keen eye on the horizon with his convenient mutant height.   
  
“Is there anything in particular that we’re on the lookout for?” he asked, and at Addisson’s glance he nodded in the direction of a dilapidated building in the distance which she could only just now notice, due to her somewhat less impressive stature.   
  
“Not really,” she said, though she changed course for the building at her partner’s silent suggestion. “Anything useful. Anything we tend to run out of. Or anything we can sell. I bet Moira’d buy any working appliances we could find.”   
  
Despite his low vantage point, Dogmeat realized they’d changed directions and dashed on ahead. Addisson hoped that didn’t mean he’d smelled a molerat or something. It was a nice day; she didn’t feel like busting out the Wazer Wifle.   
  
From his requisite few steps behind her, Fawkes gave a short laugh-- a noise she was always happy to hear, because it was so distinctly different from what any other super mutant would give you, or any other prisoner, and it was always nice to remember that Fawkes was no longer either of those things.   
  
“Do you think it wise to give Moira anything that could be used to start fires?”   
  
Addisson returned the laugh, shaking her head at the thought of Moira’s periodic failed inventions. “She usually puts them out herself,” she said with a languid shrug. “I think that shows enough responsibility. Anyway, if she doesn’t get them from us, she’ll just buy them from a caravan. And at least I know what they’re supposed to look like, working.”   
  
There was no barking up ahead, so Addisson didn’t pause to scan the environment before they rounded the corner of the building they’d approached. It was a large brick thing, two stories, with a mostly intact roof and less than half-ruined walls. There weren’t any obvious signs, so it wasn’t until they’d come around the other side that she could guess what it had been used for.   
  
“...A playground,” she said, just a little bit in awe. Relics of pre-war domesticity were so charming, in their way, echoes of the pictures she’d seen in books back home--, in the vault. She looked back at the building, considering. There were slightly discolored spaces where the letters of a sign might have hung before, but otherwise there were no clear labels. “What do you think this was a school?”   
  
“That’s what it seems,” Fawkes said, looking at it a bit wistfully himself, with the sort of melancholy of a half-remembered dream.   
  
The front door was shut, meaning Dogmeat probably hadn’t gone inside, so Addisson meandered into the ruins of the playground in casual search of him. Some of the equipment hadn’t withstood the test of time; there were the remains of what looked like wooden jungle gyms and swingsets amid some trash and debris that was clearly much newer. But the metal pieces were still standing. On the other side of the yard, beyond the cracked blacktop ball courts, that’s where they found the dog: paws up on a dome-shaped set of monkey bars, whining cutely at a squirrel. The thing squeaked in distress, but it was clearly smart enough to realize the high ground was safer.   
  
Addisson grinned. “Aww, d’ya find a friend, Dogchow?”   
  
Dogmeat looked over at her briefly, just long enough that she could see the pleading in his mismatched eyes, but then he was back at whining and softly snapping at the rodent.   
  
“I think he’s hoping it will be lunch,” Fawkes commented, adding wryly, “or a chew toy.”   
  
“Well.” Addisson nodded her head to the side and back far enough to look at her companion upside down as he loomed a respectful two feet away. “You can’t always be picky out here. Sometimes you want one and you end up with the other.”   
  
“Speaking from experience?” Fawkes asked. He stepped around to put himself in Addisson’s view, so she lost her excuse for craning her neck so dangerously far back.   
  
She let out a puff of air-- half of a laugh, because her answer was half a joke. “Why do you think I call him ‘Dogmeat’?” She grinned, knowing Fawkes probably wouldn’t be offended by the implication that she’d ever considered eating her beloved pet. After all, they’d all eaten worse things, _and_ dogs.   
  
Fawkes didn’t call her out on the joke being either too false or too true. “Should we help him out?” he asked instead, watching the shepherd-mutt hop around in excitement, eyes still glued to the terrified little creature.   
  
“Nah,” Addisson said. “This is probably the most fun he’s had in weeks.” With a quick glance around just to make sure no feral ghouls were getting ready to attack, she sat down on a short stone wall that might have been a retainer for some kind of vegetation in the distant past. She was a little surprised when Fawkes joined her, sitting within reach on her right.   
  
They’d been traveling together for some time now: weeks, maybe months if you counted the time when they were parted or she was indisposed. Since they’d met back in Vault 87, they’d been as inseparable as possible, both just so appreciative of the other for saving their lives (or trying to, at least; it wasn’t Fawkes’ fault that she escaped from the Enclave before he could bust her out, and it was the thought that counted, honestly). But things had been so busy until the past week or so, and even when they _did_ have time to just sit down for a damn minute Fawkes usually kept that polite distance of his. Addisson had figured he was just too aware of being _other,_ of being a super mutant (or ‘meta human’ as he liked to call them), and stayed out of arm’s reach in anticipation of his companion’s assumed discomfort over the fact. But they hadn’t spoken about it, and he was still a super mutant, so now she wondered if maybe he had just been shy.   
  
Either way, he was sitting nearby now, like a _normal_ friend or partner, and Addisson found she liked it better. Consequently, she didn’t bother to ask why.   
  
She did have questions, though. Fawkes occasionally glanced back at Dogmeat, but otherwise his gaze wandered the playground, lingering on the remainder of the climbing bars, the tall metal slide, the see-saw. She wondered what exactly he was seeing, or maybe remembering.   
  
“Did you… play on stuff like this? When you were a kid?”   
  
He looked over to her in gentle surprise. “I don’t remember,” he told her, in the tone of voice that said he’d told her before, but didn’t mind telling her again except that the answer hadn’t changed.   
  
Fawkes had never strictly said that he didn’t remember his childhood, just that he didn’t remember who he was. Optimistically, she’d hoped that just meant that he’d forgotten his identity but maybe retained some memories. She guessed now that when he said he didn’t remember his past he meant the whole thing; that he wasn’t exaggerating when he said he’d been in that prison cell as long as he could remember.   
  
_‘Oh,’_ was the first response to come to mind, but that wasn’t much in the way of sympathy. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to say sorry, not when it wasn’t her fault and he’d clearly mostly gotten over it. Instead she opted for a personal anecdote.   
  
“We didn’t have space for a real playground in the vault,” she said. “I mean, obviously. You’ve, you know what they’re like inside. Kinda cramped. But one of the guards did set up a kind of obstacle course in one of the less-used hallways. We used it for PhysEd. That was always my favorite class.”   
  
Unsurprisingly, Fawkes looked contemplative. Addisson could guess he was comparing her experience with his meager own. Not jealously, just… thoughtfully. She was pretty certain that Vault 87 didn’t have an obstacle course, and if they did then Fawkes definitely wasn’t allowed to use it. (Not that super mutants needed exercise anyway. They could eat candy and drink Nukas all day and stay at an easy 77% muscle.)   
  
He surprised her by failing to think of the vault at all. His gaze had returned to the playground. “I don’t _remember,”_ he repeated. “But I know I’ve seen this before, or places _like_ this. Before the war. I know I didn’t just read about them.”   
  
“Then maybe you _did_ come here as a kid,” Addisson said brightly. “Most of the vault residents were locals, right? So it makes sense that you probably lived close by.”   
  
“Maybe,” Fawkes replied, but it was obvious that he wasn’t entirely feeling it. Still, he looked at the playground and the school like they _meant_ something to him but he couldn’t figure out why. Like there was some connection, or some distant memory maybe only tangentially related to the actual location, but linked just the same in his mind.   
  
He could have been a teacher, maybe even the principal. Addisson could see that, easily. The picture of the big mutant in a button-down and pressed pants was a little extra ridiculous, but his demeanor would’ve probably made him a great mentor of some sort. She could imagine kids coming to him for help on their homework, or just for advice. Just to hear some sage wisdom from one of his favorite old authors that the kids were too young to know he didn’t come up with himself. Or maybe just to talk, because their own families weren’t as supportive as kind Mr. Fawkes.   
  
The idea lit up in her head like a slow-glowing bulb down a lonely hallway. No, it wasn’t that he was a teacher. Probably not. It was something much more simple, something she hadn’t considered because… maybe she was too caught up not thinking about her own family.   
  
All the Vault 87 residents were from before the war; they both knew that. 87 wasn’t like 101. There had been no future generations. From the holotapes and terminal entries she’d found, it had been obvious that every resident of 87 had been subject to the FEV experiment within just a few short years. Many had died. The ones who survived would be the last of their lines, because super mutants didn’t have families, let alone children.   
  
But that didn’t mean they didn’t have families before.   
  
Addisson tried to keep the frown out of her eyes when she turned to look at Fawkes, who was still gazing placidly out across the basketball courts. It made sense that he’d had a family. Why wouldn’t he have? A mutant this kind and loyal had to have been an absolute dear as a man. A sweet, trusting man who had entered the vault program in hopes of saving his family-- only to be so brutally betrayed.   
  
As if he could feel her staring, he turned to look down at her, and they stared at each other for a few moments, in some kind of sad commiseration. Somehow, she thought he knew the story that had crossed her mind. But he didn’t mention it, and neither did she. He’d already said he didn’t remember. Bringing up his loss now would’ve just been cruel.   
  
She sighed, heavy and loud. He followed suit, much quieter, more restrained, like most of his actions. Whatever phantom memory he had of watching his children play (or watching his students, or playing there himself as a child) was never going to be more than a ghost. It was never going to give him closure, no matter how much he stared or how quietly he sighed.   
  
Standing and stretching, Addisson took a step toward the dome climbing bars and put her hands on her hips. “Think that thing’ll attack me if I try to climb up there and rescue it?” she asked with a cheesy grin in Fawkes’ direction.   
  
The idea snapped him at least mostly out of his relative melancholy. He grimaced at her (more so than usual). “I am not sure if rabies is still a threat, but it might be wisest to let Dogmeat handle it.”   
  
“Eh,” Addisson said, as no kind of response at all. “I’m not in the mood to see him slaughter an innocent creature. Anyway, we’ve got dog food. That has got to taste better than rad-squirrel.”   
  
“Open a can and I’m sure he’ll cast his vote,” Fawkes suggested diplomatically.   
  
Addisson pulled the pack off her back and rummaged through it for a can, handing it to Fawkes. “All right. Teamwork. You open the can, and I’ll go shoo the squirrel away while Dog’s distracted.”   
  
Fawkes took the can, the average-sized cylinder looking petite in his massive but gentle grip. “Don’t get rabies,” he told her, mock-seriously. He gave her a moment to roll her eyes and jog over to the monkey bars before he popped the lid on the can.   
  
Dogmeat’s ears perked up and he very suddenly forgot about the squirrel (which had wisened up and stopped chirping, decreasing the dog’s interest in it by at least a decent fraction). He dashed over to Fawkes, who offered up the can with a look of contentment. (Dealing with Dogmeat always seemed to please him.)   
  
The squirrel was still too scared to run, so Addisson climbed partway up the jungle gym to spook it. Finally, it skittered down the other side and under a complex pile of debris ten yards away.   
  
“It seems you were correct,” Fawkes called (quietly) from their stone wall seat. He looked proud of her in a way she didn’t understand but was getting used to. It wasn’t the kind of look her father had ever given her (though he’d been plenty proud when she proved anywhere near as smart as her mother, when she got good grades or was praised by the Overseer), or like the ways her vault friends had looked when she came up with a fun or clever idea. It was an expression unique to Fawkes and only for her, something he used all the time but never explained.   
  
She wondered if maybe he didn’t know what he meant by it either. If maybe his appreciation for her saving his life was still so big and new that all the little nuance was eclipsed by it. She definitely got it, if that was the case.   
  
But she guessed it didn’t really matter. Not yet, if it ever would. They didn’t need to name every emotion, or fully recall every guttering flame of ghostly memory. They were getting along just fine as they were. And anyway, every day they were making new memories. Not always better ones than the perfect could’ve-beens, but definitely better than all the heartache that had plagued them.   
  
Like, tomorrow. Tomorrow they would make a memory of a fully-stocked house in Megaton. Maybe Moira would invent something that didn’t explode. And then they’d go on another adventure, just the three of them, their own weird little family in this weird big world.   
  
Addisson climbed up higher, until she stood carefully at the top of the dome. She could see a good distance this way, and she noted a few interesting places they could check for quality scrap.   
  
“Hey, I see some stuff this way!” she called.   
  
Fawkes looked up when he heard her voice, his expression going from gentle dog-lover to… something more focused when his eyes fell on her, standing there above him. She wondered if she looked as proud as she felt. Not… about saving the squirrel, but just… the way that everything that had happened to them could’ve been so much worse. She wondered if he could see the great tomorrow shining in her head.   
  
Smiling (as much as he could, with too much muscle and just enough skin), he stood and approached the dome. He looked up at her, and she thought he seemed to like the change. He was always inadvertently looming, after all. Maybe it was nice to be _loomed over,_ for once.   
  
“Lead the way,” he said, nodding her on.   
  
So she hopped down from the jungle gym (carefully, taking Fawkes’ offered hand for balance), shouldered her gear, and headed on. Tomorrow would bring new memories, ones she could guess at but not fully know. The rest of the future was a mystery, but she’d do everything in her power to make it better than isolation and shadow memories (both for him and for her).   
  
But for today, there was the horizon. Dogmeat took point, Fawkes settled in at Addisson’s shoulder, and they walked on. 


End file.
